I'd rather be set ablaze and burnt to pure bone before living in either a pure Socialist or Fascist country. Both are absolutely heinous, degrading systems that eviscerate any shred of humanity and dignity.

And yet the nordic countries, all of which are socialist, are constantly voted as the best places to live and have the highest standards of living in the world.

Seriously, talk about being ignorant...

Only, the Nordic Countries aren't Socialists- they are Capitalistic- they may practice a more humane form of Capitalism, but that private enterprise exist at the hand of private individuals in a hierarchial structure, in which a Capitalist owns the Capital in said enterprise, already marks these Nordic Countries as capitalist.

It seems I was wrong. Guess I'll have to eat my words now. Now I look REALLY stupid.
Thanks for revealing to me my ignorance.

It depends on what you mean by the words. The meaning of Facism changed to include a biological ethnicity component after being applied to Nazi Germany. The word Socialism has been miss-used for so long, that the meaning of the word has changed. Socialism used to be about complete control by the state, with no ownership of land, and the removal of class structure. Some see the removal of class structure as a good thing. All it really means is that the state lives high on the hog while all the citizens are made even poorer than the poorest were prior to Socialism. Of course, any opposition is met with death. The socialist state is rife with corruption, as well. It really isn't a system you would want to live under. At least with Facism, you wouldn't necessarily have to be barely eking by an extremely meager existence. If you were useful in a field that the Facist nation deemed to be worthy of a higher lifestyle, then you would be better off than as a citizen of a Socialist nation. Both systems are crap.

i think you mean capitalism

socialism is one in which all things are owned by society, ie the tax payers.
capitalism is one in which all things are owned by the rich and powerfull who live high on the hog while everyone else gets poorer than they were before capitalism.

It depends on what you mean by the words. The meaning of Facism changed to include a biological ethnicity component after being applied to Nazi Germany. The word Socialism has been miss-used for so long, that the meaning of the word has changed. Socialism used to be about complete control by the state, with no ownership of land, and the removal of class structure. Some see the removal of class structure as a good thing. All it really means is that the state lives high on the hog while all the citizens are made even poorer than the poorest were prior to Socialism. Of course, any opposition is met with death. The socialist state is rife with corruption, as well. It really isn't a system you would want to live under. At least with Facism, you wouldn't necessarily have to be barely eking by an extremely meager existence. If you were useful in a field that the Facist nation deemed to be worthy of a higher lifestyle, then you would be better off than as a citizen of a Socialist nation. Both systems are crap.

i think you mean capitalism

socialism is one in which all things are owned by society, ie the tax payers.
capitalism is one in which all things are owned by the rich and powerfull who live high on the hog while everyone else gets poorer than they were before capitalism.

No, I meant Socialism. Only tiny societies can be run without some sort of governing body. Anything of even village size or more would need at least a village elder or council. As soon as the society has a governing body, then things "owned" by that society are actually owned by the governing body, not society. This is one of the issues with Marxist Socialism. Sure the "proletariat" might rise up and install a new Socialist government, but that government is never run by the "proletariat". As soon people gain power, and wealth that comes with it, those individuals shift from the "proletariat" to the rich ruling class.

While many things in a capitalism are often owned by the rich and powerful, not everything is. Poorer members of society can still own things. Depending on the society, they may be able to own everything they might need.

Socialist. I live in Sweden and I do know that it made Sweden great!
But since the 80's Neo-Liberalism is slowly destroying what we built up during the early to late mid 1900's.
We were the most equal nation, in many ways.

Too bad the world right now (Except latin-america & Africa) is in a Neo-Lib circle of death! But South America was there in the 90's
and they noticed how utterly stupid it was, it destroyed their economies, after that a sharp left-turn happened there.
Then Chavez, Morales, Kirchner, Correa, etc came to power and started building socialism.

Europe will see the same fate as South America, we are already noticing it in Southern Europe, Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, etc.

I don't believe socialism is attainable in the current position of the economic world; based on resources, how can anywhere become purely socialist with world-wide resources already reaching a critical position, in an already capitalist favoured world? I'm all for socialism in its definition, really, but being a literalist to an extent I don't believe it's realistic.

Fascism is disgusting, also. That doesn't mean I favour capitalism though, because I don't. I just believe that it's the only workable system for the masses per se.

I understand this is hypothetical, so hypothetically I'd say I prefer socialism, but people have decided to respond literally, so I thought I would, too.

socialism in real life or in paper if i only had the two choices... btw SOCIALISM is not perfect in the real world probably because we have greedy human's and a power hungry govemnent but on paper it is the perfeccly fair society... a perfect govermnent ...

As a Brit, who now lives in the United States, I honestly don't understand America's fear of socialism. There's so much rubbish spoken about the subject, often by people who don't even have any concept of what socialism actually is.
I remember during the run-up to Obamacare, when national embarrassments like Sarah Palin talked about 'socialized medicine' and 'death panels'. It was utterly ridiculous, but I couldn't tell if she was just plain lying or simply a moron. I've had medical care in Europe and I've had it in the US, and there was absolutely no difference in quality. In fact, the only difference was that in Europe, once treatment was complete, I didn't have to pay any money.
Never had to face a death panel, either!

Of course, the UK isn't actually a 'socialist' state, but that is the perception that right-wing politicians like to put across in order to frighten American citizens about the slippery slope of universal healthcare. What's so odd to someone who grew up in a society with a welfare state is that people in the US tend to claim to be so 'Christian', and yet there's a strong attitude (ironically, most obvious in the Bible belt) of 'Why should I pay for the well being of someone else, just because they don't have the money to care for themselves?' Well, how very Christian of you!
America, if nothing else, is certainly a nation of contradictions.

While Socialism is the slightly better of the two, I'd rather live in the current government system I currently live in, which ( Even we US citizens get this wrong much), A Federal Republic. The problem with Socialism is, while the idea sounds good on paper, people will eventually stop working, which will cause a massive economic collapse and severe shortages (which is why the Soviet Union collapsed). Fascism doesn't work at all because this would require one single person to control every aspect of the government and its people, and is only meant for someone to gain more. This will eventually cause riots and the system will collapse (unless you are like NK, then people will pretty much starve to death and will try to flee). A Federal Republic is designed to prevent one branch to gain too much power. The Legislative branch requires the Executive branch to sign a bill, but can override a veto. An Executive order is really nothing more than a really big pretty please. The judicial branch is to make sure that any bill is lawful (which is why the Affordable Health Care Act did not become a law. The government cannot force a decision upon its citizens. It was legal for it to become a tax, however, which is why it's a tax for those who did not want to get medical coverage.) The judicial branch, however, cannot make or enforce a law.